Mitt Romney came in second place to openly gay presidential candidate Fred Karger at yesterday’s Saint Anselm College Republicans Straw Poll in Manchester, NH.

While straw poll results are not necessarily the best way to measure public opinion, this one is worth a closer look because it was the first time Karger’s name has appeared on a 2012 election poll in New Hampshire.

A similar NH GOP 2012 Straw Poll conducted in January garnered nationwide media coverage. Mitt Romney won that contest handily, but only 273 people cast votes. By contrast, aÂ total of 322 voters participated in yesterday’s straw poll, according to WMUR Political Scoop.

Fred Karger’s margin of victory was slim, he only beat Mitt Romney by 5 votes. Still, it was well earned victory that Karger has been working towards for months. He’s visited New Hampshire 13 times over the past year, spending much much of that time campaigning on college campuses. In recent months, he’sÂ stood alongside youth fighting to defeat a GOP sponsored NH House bill that would have deprived college students of the right to vote in the communities they live in while attending school.

There is a grassroots revolution underway on college campuses in New Hampshire and it is not being led by Ron Paul, who placed a distant 5th place in the Saint Anselm straw poll.